Edward, of another name
by Yin Long Nocturne
Summary: Bella doesn't get there in time to stop Edward from walking into the sun. Warning: character death, suicide, vamp to human transformation. Full notes inside.


I wrote this a bit over a month ago, but it was part of a larger plot that I couldn't get it to connect to, so it wasn't posted then. Now I have the connection and the beginning of chapter 1, so you get the prologue.

**Detailed Warnings: **Edward attempts to commit assisted suicide, but instead falls into a coma and eventually dies anyway. His death isn't exactly permanent, but the resolution of that is in the next chapter.

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><p>It was all over the headlines for days. The man who'd walked into the sunlight at the Porta all'Arco and mysteriously collapsed. A perfectly healthy, mid twenties caucasian male with no ID on him. The police did a cursory investigation but with no missing persons matching his description and his DNA matching no one's on file there was little they could do.<p>

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed hospital room, the mystery man lay in a coma with no sign of waking.

* * *

><p>At first Bella had hoped. She had thought that Alice had made a mistake, that Edward hadn't stepped out into the midday sun. The flight had landed an hour too late, delayed by bad weather over the Atlantic. When they'd arrived, Edward was no where to be seen, and the Volturi were playing it all off. They weren't willing to admit anything, and no amount of Alice offering herself as a reward got anything out of Aro.<p>

But Bella still hoped.

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><p>It was Jasper that called it first. No stranger to the casualties of war, and death even in the immortal. It was him who first admitted that Edward must be dead. No vampire could survive the midday sun, not so close to the Volturi. The price of exposure was death, and the Volturi was swift to enact it's punishments. Edward would have fallen before he could have taken a step.<p>

It was Jasper who told the coven it was time to mourn.

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><p>Jacob's only thought was that, if he could, he would kill Edward again for what he'd done to Bella. He was the one to pick up her pieces, hold her together until she could knit the fragments of her life back together. His pack was being run ragged, Sam and the council enforcing extra patrols, for fear of the coven rampaging in their grief.<p>

If Jacob could, he would have killed Edward himself.

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><p>It was Charlie Swan who asked the Cullens what had happened to their son. It was him who made them spin a tale of depression and anxiety that lead to suicide. And they began to resent him for the necessary sullying of Edward reputation. But it was the Sheriff who told everyone else, and who organised a memorial.<p>

Charlie Swan always looked out for his daughter, even when that meant making sure she mourned her boyfriend properly.

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><p>It was Alec who saw Edward walk out into the square. He spent weeks doubting his eyes. He had been preparing to take Edwards head, only for him to collapse. Alec had watched, frozen beneath his grey cloak, as the humans had swarmed Edward's limp form, yelling for emergency services.<p>

It was Alec who lied, telling Aro that Edward had died, killed before he could expose them.

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><p>Talia was the name of the nurse who looked after the coma patient who had collapsed in the square. She was the one who called the doctor's as his heart began to fade. Talia helped them revive him three times, before they didn't react fast enough. To her, he was another patient. Another face to remember that didn't leave the hospital.<p>

She never knew his name was Edward.

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><p>The mortician who did Edward's autopsy was Antonio. He was baffled, there was nothing physically wrong with the young man on his table. No discernable reason for him to have died. Antonio mourned the young life, full of so much unfulfilled potential, not knowing that it had already seen centuries.<p>

Like Talia, Antonio never knew the young man's name was Edward.

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><p>Aro knew of Alec's lie. But he continued it nonetheless, and Edward never reappeared. There were no rumours of people who sparkled in the sunlight. No whispers of unnatural beings living alongside humans. So he left Edward's collapse uninvestigated. There was no reason for him to follow it up. Edward's death cowed the Olympic coven, they didn't think further on turning the girl Edward had loved.<p>

To Aro, Edward had still served his purpose.

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><p>When Edward took that step forward, out onto the cobbled stones of the square, he knew he was orchestrating his death. He knew the Volturi would never stand for a vampire to reveal themselves to the midday crowds at one of Italy's most famous tourists locations. He was counting on their swiftness. He didn't suspect that it wasn't Alec that killed him. Edward didn't know he spent a month in a coma.<p>

Edward didn't know he died as a human.

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><p>Alessia was an assistant in the morgue. She was the one who secreted the body of the unknown man away to be buried. Something in her wouldn't let him be turned to ash in the cremation ovens. She buried him on a hillside outside of Volterra, under a small grave marker that never had a name inscribed.<p>

She never knew why she risked everything to bury a man she knew nothing of.


End file.
